The Lance J. Technoweb

I was helping a friend install the "Examity SB" software for proctored exam taking. What a mess! I'm not complaining about the concept of the proctored online examines. It is the quality of Examity's client software implementation and associated process that is nothing short of an embarrassment. Examity's software and process design flaws can turn the test-taking process from "stressful" to "idiotic nightmare". "Examity SB" is one of the worst "professional", publicly distributed software packages I've seen in years. A Rant for the Ages. Adobe Flash? Please! First, Examity's website suggested that I download and install the obsolete Adobe Flash software system. Since Adobe Flash is dangerous from a computer security perspective and unavailable, I decided to download the native SB application. Just as a data point, my organization decided to sunset our use of Adobe Flash for user-facing pedagogical software developme...

Today is the day! I am "installing Internet" in a friend's new city apartment. The goal: great Internet service for a group of young professionals, while keeping the cost as low as possible and the reliability very high. Here is the story of what I did to accomplish that goal. The overview of the who, what, and where: Four professionals, mostly working from home. Very densely populated urban environment. Comcast Xfinity is the area's wired, high-speed Internet monopoly. High reliability and reasonable performance for video chat is critical. Internet Service Ordering: Don't Over-Do It. Let's say you want to reduce your daily commute time. Right now you drive a stock Honda Civic that costs $80 a month. How much commuting time will you save by investing $200 a month on turbocharger? Zero hours and zero minutes. "Gigabit" download speeds are an extraordinary waste of money. Sure, we'll have four people being busy all day, but busy does not mean there...

We've all seen the famous recycling symbol on products, like these: ♲♳♴♵♹ The Weird "Recycling Symbol" Surprise The "Recycling" symbol you see on packaging and products are NOT designed to have anything to do with curbside recycling.  Instead, the symbol is merely an indicator of what kind of material it is made out of. Industry plasters this symbol on many products that are to be thrown in the trash.  Industry over-applies this symbol as a "greenwashing" strategy, tricking consumers into believing that a product is recyclable when in reality it is not.  And Consumers are tricked: people WANT stuff to be recyclable, and so they throw it into the recycle bin.  Then the bad item gets blended into a bunch of other otherwise good stuff, and diminishes the entire lot. So what is recyclable?  The answer is: read your local recycling rules, and be a pessimist. If in doubt, it is better to throw it into the trash than to ruin an entire lot of recyclables. Befo...

I have several MikroTik RB952Ui hAP AC Lite routers.  They're located in closets, basements, attics, and on desktops.  Each location results in different needs in terms of power.  Happily, the hAP AC Lite is quite flexible when it comes to power.  Here I document the three different ways I have powered my MikroTik AC Lite routers. Power Solutions: Active PoE+ Splitter, Passive PoE Injector, and Standard wall adapter Standard Power: MikroTik (or aftermarket) Wall Wart The default way to power the AC Lite is by using its standard "barrel-style" power port, which is far more flexible than your typical router.  The AC Lite accepts power between 10 and 24VDC.  When using the MikroTik in a desktop configuration, I use the stock 24 volt MikroTik power adapter .  The stock adapter output specifications are as follows: 24 VDC 1200 mA  2.1mm barrel Center Positive  Passive Power-over-Ethernet solution: TP-Link Power Injector Sometimes it is useful to ...

I recently upgraded my current home Internet infrastructure with a Mikrotik Routerboard router.  My legacy WiFi equipment had been based exclusively on 802.11n, which still works well but is now two generations old.  I decided to upgrade with a " MikroTik RB952 hAP AC Lite " router, in hopes that it becomes my "personal standard" for home networking. The MikroTik home router is small, inexpensive (under $50), and highly configurable.  It is reasonably modern, with an 802.11ac radio. It runs MikroTik's RouterOS operating system, which is comprehensive, frequently updated, and provides far more capability than I need.  It also seems to be possible to run OpenWRT on this router . I was using Apple Airport routers (easy, capable, reliable, but no longer manufactured) and GL.iNet's OpenWRT based routers (flexible and inexpensive, but mine were the 2.4 GHz only models).  They all served me well with no complaints.  I figured that now was the time to try somethin...

I have two buildings on my property, and I wanted to bring Internet to my garage without pulling a wire. Previously I was using the barely-adequate reach of my house's WiFi, but it was just a little too far and it would drop frequently enough to be painful. My solution is a WiFi Directional access point - the TP-Link CP210. I chose the CP-210 because it was inexpensive. It only supports the 2.4 GHz band, but my goal was quality over performance. In all, it does this job perfectly. I mounted the CP-210 in my attic because it was easier to install that way. If I really wanted to I could mount it on the outside, but that means drilling holes and climbing a ladder and other things that I don't want to do. After all, it works great from inside - an outside mount isn't going to give me anything more except more work. I simply pointed the CP-210's antenna to my garage and that was it. Easy and effective. The CP-210 has a bunch of useful configuration options - it isn't jus...

I've been using my late 2009-vintage A1342 MacBook as my primary computer for many years,  but I have just upgraded to a 2020 "M1" MacBook Air . There was nothing wrong with my old MacBook, except that it could no longer run a supported Mac operating system.  So I decided to repurpose it as a utility laptop that I can drag around to different sites to perform basic network maintenance functions. My old MacBook had a Sandisk 1 TB SSD inside, which is far more than it needs now.  I ended up pulling out  the 1 TB drive and putting it into a USB3 enclosure so that I can archive bulky files on it (photos, email, videos and documents).  Instead of the 1 TB drive, I put a very inexpensive 60 GB SSD into the MacBook.  60 GB is plenty of space for what I plan to use it for. Thank you, MacBook A1342.  Your 11+ years of service have been amazing.